January 2018 – Edition 154

ARTHUR JABEZ SMALL – ARTICLE

Introduction

The above photo shows Avalon Beach, with its generous expanse of sand and high sandhills, looking north to its headland.

It seemed to me that a “beach” theme would be particularly appropriate for Australia’s current summer. You will be hearing a lot more about Avalon.

This article is about a great grandson of Big Bill, Arthur Jabez Small. Arthur was by far the biggest land developer in the Jerrems family, pioneering the development of 63 acres of land in the modern-day up-market Sydney beach suburb of Avalon. Perhaps it could be quipped that he was Small by name but not by nature.

He was also a prominent conservationist, being a founder of an association which later became the largest conservation organisation in New South Wales.

Briefly, Big Bill had a daughter Elizabeth who married William Small, and the couple migrated to Australia in 1850 with their three children, including Jabez William Small.

In an earlier article I described Jabez William’s sojourn in the Army in New Zealand and his later investments while living in Sydney. In 1870 he married Emma Augusta Newsham (1849-1927) and they had eight children, the fourth being the subject of this article, Arthur Jabez Small.

Location of Avalon

Avalon Beach, shown in the photo at the beginning of this article, is a far northern beach of Sydney.

Readers will probably know that the Sydney coastline, which runs south to north, is made up of a considerable length of alternating beaches and headlands. Comprised of horizontal layers of sandstone, the cliffs on the headlands vary in height from a maximum of about 70 metres (220 feet) at the entrance to Sydney Harbour to about 20 metres (70 feet) further north and south.

The above map shows the coastline from Manly, on the north side of Sydney Harbour, past Brookvale and Narrabeen, and then to the peninsular containing Newport to Avalon, and then Palm Beach.

Settlement on the northern beaches had commenced at Manly in the 1860’and 1870s, and gradually spread north, but the comparatively short distance between the Ocean and the steep hills to the west, and poor sandy soils, meant that farming, the usual precursor to more intensive settlement, was limited.

It was not until the end of the First World War that the northerly spread of housing reached the Avalon Area.

My source for the following information is the website of the Avalon Beach Historical Society.

Early subdivisions of the peninsula area

Originally a grant of 1280 acres was made by the Governor in the 1830s. An 1880 auction of some of the area was greeted with resounding apathy. The area was probably still too distant from Sydney and via a poorly made track!

Amazingly, it was 40 years before the Avalon area was finally opened up for residential development, by Arthur and his business partner.

To my mind the main obstacle in attracting people to travel to the Avalon area was the distance from Sydney’s suburbs rather than road conditions. A car driver living in the city area would have to cross Sydney Harbour on a vehicular ferry, drive along Military Road, take a vehicular ferry across “The Spit”, then drive a further 25k m to Avalon. A person living on the North Shore (like Arthur) still had to follow Military Road to The Spit, take the vehicular ferry and then drive to Avalon. Public transport (by ferry and tram) was only available to Narrabeen, 10km short of Avalon.

Arthur joins forces with a fellow Land agent

Arthur’s business partner was Alfred Ickerson (a fellow Land Agent) who lived in Mosman, eventually bought a 63 acre block, in an ideal location in a sheltered valley close to the Ocean.

In 1920 they began to lay out the township of Avalon Beach. Small built his holiday home (which also doubled as a site office) in Bellevue Avenue, most likely to the design of architect and friend, Ruskin Rowe. A nameplate with the word “Avalon” was fixed to one of the verandah support columns.

Source of the name “Ävalon”

According to his late children, Arthur appears to have chosen that name for his holiday house from the Middle Ages King Arthur, who chose the mythical isle of Avalon in Glastonbury, England to rest and heal his wounds. Although the house was called “Avalon” it is clear Small intended the name of the area should be “Avalon Beach”. 

In a demonstration of his enterprise, he used the motto “Cronulla was, Palm Beach is and Avalon Beach will be” on a printed advertising sign fixed in the railway carriages of the 1920s.

Publicity poster for the subdivision

Here is a photo of the poster which publicised the subdivision in 1920, The most important thing to understand at this stage is that basically the house blocks surrounded a proposed golf course.

The poster was typical of subdivision posters, with its emphasis on enthusiastic claims and paucity of details. Although you cannot read the text you can at least read the large type.

The grandiose claim that the subdivision afforded “The Greatest Beachside Investment Since Croinulla” conveniently overlooked that fact that (unlike Avalon) Cronulla could be reached by uninterrupted public transport.

Arthur flies into action

Although Ickerson was killed in a traffic accident in 1923 Arthur was obviously not deterred and continued to carry out a formidable array of projects aimed at attracting buyers to the area.

Briefly he went on to build the first general store and adjacent tennis court, the first service station, golf links and mini golf course, formalised the excavation of the rock swimming pool and established the Avalon Beach Surf Lifesaving Club.

The poster claimed that “Ït will be one of the select and most exclusive of Sydney’s seaside resorts”. Inclusion of the tennis court, golf links and mini golf course indicates to me that Arthur’s objective was to attract a fairly affluent clientele, compared with the earlier beachfront pattern of providing facilities for day visitors at places like Manly and Bondi involving fun piers, water rides and circuses.

Arthur also built the first two-storey commercial building in Avalon Beach on the south-eastern corner of Avalon Parade and Old Barrenjoey Road in the mid 1930s.

Arthur also created numerous parks and reserves which I will describe in a later article.

He was most certainly the “father of Avalon Beach”.

A Progress Report

This is an aerial photo of the Avalon area taken by Captain Frank Hurley, the famous Antarctic and First World War photographer. There is nothing on it to indicate specifically when it was taken, however it shows the two storey building built in the mid 1930s referred to earlier in this article, so it was probably taken in the late 1930s. I have asked Hurley’s granddaughter if she has any idea, but she hasn’t.

The first thing to note is that it conveniently faces south, like the poster. The large bare area in the upper middle is the site of the golf course, the houses on the top left follow the top of the headland, the north-south road is Old Barrenjoey Road (as it is now known) and the two clusters of buildings half way down that road at the first major intersection include the General Store, Service Station and two storey building. There are other buildings in the vicinity sprinkled along the adjacent roads.

Although the publicity poster referred to 200 blocks the aerial photo shows 40 buildings at most, discounting the north-south row of objects (which were not in the subdivision) on the lower left behind the beach.